Georgina Herrera was born in 1936 in Jovellanos, Matanzas Province in Cuba. She has written poems since she was a little girl. Her first book, GH, was published in 1962, followed by Gentes y Cosas; Grande es el tiempo; Granos de Sol y Luna; Gustadas Sensaciones. A bilingual collection, Always Rebellious/Cimarroneando: Selected Poems, won the 2016 International Latino Book Award for Best Bilingual Poetry Book. She has received multiple medals and honors for her writing and worked until her retirement as a scriptwriter for the Cuban national radio.
Anne James has edited and solicited work for Ploughshares, St. Petersburg Review and Zymbol, the latter of which she founded in 2012. She also served as Treasurer of the New England Poetry Club from 2012-2016. She now works as a freelance editor, literary agent, translator and publishing consultant. She can be reached at annejjames@gmail.com.
Laura Contreras was born in Cuban in 1995 and is currently pursuing undergraduate degrees in history and Chinese at Havana University. In 2017, she conducted tours for Chinese and Costa Rican visitors to Cuba. Contreras worked as an English-Spanish translator for UNEAC at the International Poetry Festival of Havana, also in 2017. She was employed as a Chinese-Spanish translator in a Cuban Factory for a company based in Shanghai in 2018. Contreras currently works as a private Spanish tutor and teacher.
Yma Johnson is a first generation Sierra Leonean immigrant who began her writing career in 1996 as a journalist in Puerto Rico. She has written articles on topics ranging from the criminalization of the mentally ill to Japanese swordsmanship. She is a master’s candidate in creative writing at Eastern Michigan University where she taught rhetoric and composition. She also taught a poetry at a women's prison. Yma won 1st place in the 2012 Current Magazine Fiction and Poetry Contest as well as an honorable mention from 2014 Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, the St. Petersburg Review, The Encyclopedia Project Vol. 3, an anthology of experimental literature. Her fiction was also anthologized in, “Cthulhu Lies Dreaming,” short story collection of works inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.
Anne James has edited and solicited work for Ploughshares, St. Petersburg Review and Zymbol, the latter of which she founded in 2012. She also served as Treasurer of the New England Poetry Club from 2012-2016. She now works as a freelance editor, literary agent, translator and publishing consultant. She can be reached at annejjames@gmail.com.
Laura Contreras was born in Cuban in 1995 and is currently pursuing undergraduate degrees in history and Chinese at Havana University. In 2017, she conducted tours for Chinese and Costa Rican visitors to Cuba. Contreras worked as an English-Spanish translator for UNEAC at the International Poetry Festival of Havana, also in 2017. She was employed as a Chinese-Spanish translator in a Cuban Factory for a company based in Shanghai in 2018. Contreras currently works as a private Spanish tutor and teacher.
Yma Johnson is a first generation Sierra Leonean immigrant who began her writing career in 1996 as a journalist in Puerto Rico. She has written articles on topics ranging from the criminalization of the mentally ill to Japanese swordsmanship. She is a master’s candidate in creative writing at Eastern Michigan University where she taught rhetoric and composition. She also taught a poetry at a women's prison. Yma won 1st place in the 2012 Current Magazine Fiction and Poetry Contest as well as an honorable mention from 2014 Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, the St. Petersburg Review, The Encyclopedia Project Vol. 3, an anthology of experimental literature. Her fiction was also anthologized in, “Cthulhu Lies Dreaming,” short story collection of works inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.
Great Praise for Myself
Reflections
Africa
Great Praise for Myself
I’m the fugitive, the one who uproariously opened wide the doors of the estate and “flew the coop.” There’s no trap over which I haven’t jumped. They have never found the footprints that lead to my stockade. It seems that I have known how to do things so well. I laugh low and intensely, I make faces at enemy overseers, throw pebbles, break heads, I feel moans and curses, laugh again while I drink eternally fresh water from curujeyes,** because at night, for me alone, the moon puts forth all the glory of its light. **Curujeyes: exotic plant that accumulates water and was used by runaway slaves to satiate the thirst .
Reflections
On seeing my enemy’s dead body carried past my front door. My enemy is at peace, so much so, that he can’t distinguish between bliss and calamity. Meanwhile, what am I doing in front of my narrow door, —back turned against affection, knowing that he’s not even troubled to be going? They carry him away. On this late July day, while the smile melts from my face, my enemy is cool. And I wonder: What good was the drawn-out waiting for this moment if he can’t square up to me now? My enemy, without seeing, passing by my front door without knowing. My enemy will soon enter through the spacious door, he’ll have all the silence of which I beg only a little. What a shameful period it has been since misunderstanding degraded into offense then to unfortunate, consuming vengeance. It would’ve been better if both of us were like this, intertwined with the fingers of both hands, both alive, doing good, loving.
Africa
When I mention you, or whenever you’re mentioned in my presence, it will be to praise you. I take care of you. Beside you I stand as if at the base of the tallest tree. I think about the waters of your rivers and my eyes are washed clean. This face, made from your roots, becomes a mirror so that in it you see yourself. On my wrist you fit like a golden bracelet, so much do you shine. You dream like plucked cowries, that no one forgets that you are alive. Every place I go leads me to you. My thirst, my children, the warm wave that draws me to love, they all circle back to you. It is the same delight whether the wind blows or rain falls or lightning strikes me. I love those gods with stories like this, like mine: coming and going from love to war or vice versa. You can rest your eyes in slumber lie down a little while in peace. I am taking care of you.
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